Wednesday, August 25, 2010

While browsing the blogs of my co-bloggers, I read this post published by Aakar today. I also found that not only Aakar but also Tajim (Actually, it was Tajim's witty idea of confession), Anbika and Dinesh Wagle have posted this type of confessions in their respective blogs.

All these posts, inspired me to have something like that with my descriptions.. My heartily thanks goes to Tajim, Aakar, Anbika and Dinesh Wagle, for inspiring me to write this. As every one else, I am also borrowing the titles from Tajim's post (I have also added some). I have tweaked the title, its "I have" because there are some things which I have already witnessed. :)

* Seen an Ocean
I live in Florida, the state of USA surrounded by the oceans from three sides. I have seen Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico. The first beach I went to in my life is "the Clearwater beach". I was so excited to see the beach before going there, I wanted to feel all those feelings felt by the poets and writers when they saw beach or an ocean for the first time. However, on reaching there, I did not feel anything likr that. Honestly, what I felt was "ह्य्या.. हाम्रो कोशी जस्तै त हुँदोरहेछ नि समुन्द्र पनि, आँखाले जहाँ सम्म देखिन्छ त्यहाँ सम्म पानी कोशीमा पनि हुन्थ्यो यहाँ पनि .." May be I was so naive at that time, but that was all I felt. And till date, oceans and beaches do not bring any excitement on me.

* Been to a swimming pool
Yea, many times, When I was in tenth standard, my friends made plans to go to the swimming pool and learn swimming. I joined them too and went to the pool at "Dasarath rangashala" Tripureshwor, Kathmandu. On the first day, I just enjoyed the first ever experience of the pool, did not learn anything significant. On the following week, we heard a news that there was a deadly fight on the swimming pool area, and after that my parents prohibited me to go to the pool. They felt that the area was insecure.

* Flown Overseas
Had not until end of Oct, 2007.

* Never Traveled on the roof of a moving bus
In Nepal where roads are dangerous, and drivers drive recklessly, I do not advise anyone to experience this.

* Never jumped out of a plane or a bridge (Bungee **Scary**)
Even though I feel that bungee can be adventurous, that is not my cup of tea.

* Never touched Snow – the real one, not that which is made in a fridge.
Sad but true, it never snows in Florida!! I remember the day, when there was a snow-fall in Kathmandu, few years back. I had just finished my BE, and was working at Unlimited Pvt. Ltd. at that time. There was no window in my office room. The day was so cold, that we did not even go out and ordered our lunch in the office itself. One of my close friends in Bhairahawa, called me and asked whether it was snowing in Kathmandu or not. And, I said - " No, it's not. People might have said so because its so so so cold over here". I realized later, that it was actually snowing and I regretted for not being able to see the view.. :(

* Seen a 3D Movie
Nothing to explain about.

* Seen an Imax Movie

* Been on a roller coaster
Roller coaster, even the smallest one, scares me. I still remember the "Columbus" roller coaster's ride in Bhrikuti mandap Children's park. I was scared to death on that day. The only roller coaster I have enjoyed throughout my life, is the "Mount Everest Expedition" ride at Animal kingdom, Disney World. May be because its named after "Mount Everest" which is very much near and dear to me. :-)

*Never Smoked -- No way!! I can not even imagine that.

* Never gone Serious Trekking – though I have lived twenty-three golden years of my life in Nepal

* Never visited a dentist
Its funny that I just talked about it yesterday. I do not even know how a dentist looks like.. hehe..

* Been to a Gym
Yea, a couple of times I would say, I have never liked the heavy work-outs though!!

* Seen a Lion or Tiger
I was amazed when I saw a white tiger, I remembered Daimon Samsher Rana's "सेतो बाघ" :-)

* Never gone to any serious forest/jungle
Nope..can't even think of going to the habitat of the wild animals. I am scared of almost every other animal in the world. I never touched our dog "काले" which was like a family member for my dad, mom and brother. Now, काले has already passed away, may his soul rest in peace.

* Applied for US Diversity VISA
Many times. :P

* Gone more than 6 months in any serious day-job

* Never seen any Himesh Reshammiya Movie (this one for Bollywood Fans)
I did not even know he had acted in any movies. Not trying be offend someone, but I do not even like his songs.. :P

* Never been to any underground concerts.
I would not prefer to go to any kind of concerts.

* Never been to a discotheque.
I do not like to dance ( I would say I hate it, because I do not even know the basic steps), so discotheques are not mend for me..

* Never been to top floor of any high rise building.
I have never gotten any chance to.. would love to experience.. I have not even been to the top of my own Dharahara.. :(

* Met a Chinese. :-)
so many of them.. I have also written a story about one of them and My major professor is also a Chinese man !! :-)

* Seen an actual theater play.
Not recently though. I think I saw "मालती मंगले" with my parents when I was just a child.

* Never drank Beer
Wait, I have smelled it, and have tested it once, I can not imagine why do people like to drink such bitter thing ... "लालमोहन को झोल" is thousand times more testier than beer.

* Been on TV Camera.
This title made me remember the good old days. I used to be an active participant of NTV बाल कार्यक्रम hosted my Mr. Kishor Pahadi. We used to go the the TV station every week ( the shoot used to be on Sundays and our school used be off on Sundays). Later, I also participated in वक्तृत्व कला program and few others of that kind.

* Never had a Boyfriend.
Its a kind of tricky title for me. Is a husband ( who indeed is like a best friend) considered as a boyfriend ?

* Never been admitted in a hospital.
Fortunately :)

And last but not the least, I would like to admit that "I have never been to so many beautiful places of Nepal. I really regret that I was kind of "not" out-going person when I was in Nepal. I have never been to Nagarkot, Kakani, Sauraha, Ghandruk, Palpa, Manang, Mustang, Dolpa, Naamche and Ilam" :(

Friday, August 6, 2010

This article written by my Dad was published in "The Rising Nepal" I liked it so much that I wanted to post it in my blog.. :)

-Lakshmi Dhar Guragain

It was 1st January 2010 when we visited one of the most wonderful places among the entire world the "Disney World" situated in Florida, USA. It has five theme parks, out of which, one of the beautiful attractions is “Animal Kingdom”. The day was of New Year. The crowds made me feel that people all over America were present there in the park. There was a person making tattoos and children were painting animal tattoos at their face. I could not escape to capture their amazing face into my camera.

Out of two main areas of the park (Asia and Africa), we decided to enter in Asia first. When I landed my foot on Asian part; I felt that I was in my country Nepal. The ceilings of stone and jhigti were so attractively demonstrated that I was impressed. My heart felt the sense of joy when I saw yak and yeti hotel over there.

My wife stopped her foot suddenly and also asked us to listen the music being played in the huge speaker. I was totally surprised; the song being played was “resham firiri resham firiri udera jau ki dada ma vanjyang reshan firiri". Some footsteps ahead my daughter showed us a temple looking like Shiva Mandir of Gyaneshwor. We chanted panchshyari mantra "om namah sivaya" and moved forward.

My son-in-law showed the place which almost looked like asan, indrachowk. The style of house over there and the demonstration of kuto, kodalo, mandri, gundri was making our group more and more surprised. My daughter said "daddy look over there", by making the level of spectacles perfect I looked at her requested place there I saw "cocacola jaha pani jahile pani". Similarly we could see illam ko chiya, taja momo, Namaste and many Nepali words written in many places. We felt more proud when we saw the posters of Nepali film “Prem Pinda”, “Ama” etc on the wall.

We saw "Namaste" written in Nepali there

Then, we saw our pride over there, our very own mountain Sagarmatha. It was made by steel and white enamel painted so attractively. Its height was almost equal to 20 storey building. There was made provision for the mountain ride called “Everest Expedition”. My daughter purposed us for the ride I was frightened little bit because its speed was almost 100 km per hour. However, I decided to take part because all group members were interested to go for the ride. I was enjoying initially because the speed was normal but later its growing speed (on the zigzag way, both forward and backward motion) made my heart speed fast too. I was totally frightened and only chanted ram ram. I thought what would my only son in Nepal do if that was our last day in the world. Other people on the ride were screaming with fear and excitement but I could not scream, I was so scared. After the ride both of my eyes filled with tears and I heartily gave thanks to god. However, it was just a roller coaster ride, made for the enjoyment of people.

On the ride "Everest Expedition"

I thought that if people going there are given the knowledge of real Sagarmatha, they will be eager to see it. For that it would be best if there was “Sagarmatha information centre”. It would make our country's economy strong by lifting the foreign investment since huge amount of foreigners could come to see the real Sagarmatha.

Then we planned the rafting at “Kali River”. People used raincoat while rafting but it was not available with us so we were almost wet after that rafting. After Kali River we saw interesting Donald duck, Mickey Mouse and other cartoon characters in person and turn by turn clicked photo with them. The 4'd film we watched was also the very enjoyable moment of our trip. We took other smaller rides of Disney too.

Continuing our trip we went to “Africa” side, a wildlife reserve by very attractive train. We saw different animals there. Some were huge crocodiles lying over the sandy surface, tall giraffes were eating branch of tree. Little forward we saw a rhino with two horns. The wildlife reserve was so naturally designed that we felt meeting those animals in a free environment itself.

When we took our foot some steps ahead we saw the very famous cartoon character Cinderella busy in taking photographs with the people. Every kinds of people regardless of their age were there wanting to take pictures with her. It was a great thing for them to take a picture with Cinderella.

Then we saw one huge tree and people were busy in taking photograph of it. We also wanted to know the specialty of the tree. Going near that, we saw that tree's branch was carved by pictures of animals. It was so attractively carved that I also could not miss the opportunity to catch the image of that tree into my camera.

Enjoying the day very well we were moving forward my daughter pointed on one board, there was written "Namaste" by showing the picture of joining two hands. Another place in one sign board there was written "yaha basmati chamal, hariyo kerau, gahu paincha" in Nepali we were surprised and honored too because we were feeling like our country Nepal.

After that my wife and I decided to take travel on a rickshaw. It was interesting. We also clicked photo with the dummy of two horn rhino. There were so many dummies to take pictures.

While returning from the “Disney World”, I was thinking if only one of such theme park was there in Nepal, our children could learn so many things from there. We do not have any of such facilities for the children of our country, where they can enjoy and learn new things side by side. If only a small part of the well managed “Disney World” was there in Nepal, if… if…